About 30 years ago a college with a flight department 30 miles away sometimes their planes would land, taxi back and hold short of the runway blocking the taxiway with the prop ticking over leaving departing aircraft no way to get around them. They would sit there for 30 minutes sometimes much more. The airport management called the college several times with no results. A couple of FAA guys just happened to fly down to get some gas one day and got blocked behind one of the college planes. After several calls on the radio they shut down, walked up to the plane blocking the taxiway and ramp checked them. After that they flew down to the college and had a long talk with the director of the flight department. I talked with one of the inspectors a few months later renewing my CFI and he said they found out the kids were sitting there racking up flight time. Anyway it took care of that problem. A few years later they shut down the flight department.

I remembered one today; a guy on ifr flight plan to an non towered field says, "N1234 field in sight" to which atc is obliged to say the long spiel, "N1234 cleared for the visual, no traffic observed, switch to advisory, report cancellation with me or to FSS etc".
THEN pilot says "cancel ifr". To which atc is obligated to reply with the equally long "so-long vfr guy" spiel!
Gawd, if you have the field in sight and plan to cancel, Do So!
"N1234 field in sight And. Cancel. Ifr."!

I remembered one today; a guy on ifr flight plan to an non towered field says, "N1234 field in sight" to which atc is obliged to say the long spiel, "N1234 cleared for the visual, no traffic observed, switch to advisory, report cancellation with me or to FSS etc".
THEN pilot says "cancel ifr". To which atc is obligated to reply with the equally long "so-long vfr guy" spiel!
Gawd, if you have the field in sight and plan to cancel, Do So!
"N1234 field in sight And. Cancel. Ifr."!

One of my pet peeves is on one of the flying forums I belong to where most of us have one plane and sometimes its all we can do to keep up with the expense of owning that one plane...some jackhole comes along and asks what he should buy for a second plane, you know, just for fun.

And contra-rotating propellers mounted on a single engine, in case you want to have all of the maintenance costs of a twin without any of the redundancy just so you don't have to exercise your leg muscles on takeoff.

Had this happen to me the other day at CVG. I went outside to do the preflight in full uniform including blazer with my ID. I asked a mechanic what the door code to get back in was. He said with a straight face, are you crew? Again, full uniform, lanyard and ID visible.

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Any dope can buy a uniform. I had a FE walk right past us as we were working on the L1 door. It wasn't attached to the airplane. Said hi to him he walked right by like we didn't exist. Came back out to do walk around, ignored us. Came back in, ignored us. Stews showed up and said "damn dispatch didn't tell us this airplane is out of service". Meanwhile FE is playing pilot in the cockpit. Stews had to tell him to get off the airplane. Again he never acknowledged us. He did one hell of a walk around!

Reminds me of the story told by my uncle; He was working for United, had just returned from London to Chicago, and was off duty, catching a flight home to DEN. Out of uniform, and sitting in the back. It seems the pilot for that flight had been delayed somewhere else due to WX.
FA came to him, explained the situation, and asked him to take the left seat for the trip, or there would be a several hour delay. His reply: "Hey!! That'd be great!! I allways wanted to fly one of these things!! Which way to the front!!?" He said the looks on the faces of pax within earshot was priceless. He made his way upfront, and into the cockpit, and off they went. On Time no less.

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So your uncle just got off a 9 hour trip and flew that airplane past his duty time without any input from dispatch or crew scheduling? Sure.

I was following a C-130 hurricane Hunter in St Croix years ago when they stopped dead on the taxi way. There I was, staying a good ways behind them for 5 minutes until the tower asked them what were the doing. Aligning our LRUs they replied. No way to get around them but listened as the controller chewed them a new one. Their parking spot had cooridinates so they had no valid reason to do it on the taxi way except for being stupid. Takes at least 10 minutes for them to align.

Any dope can buy a uniform. I had a FE walk right past us as we were working on the L1 door. It wasn't attached to the airplane. Said hi to him he walked right by like we didn't exist. Came back out to do walk around, ignored us. Came back in, ignored us. Stews showed up and said "damn dispatch didn't tell us this airplane is out of service". Meanwhile FE is playing pilot in the cockpit. Stews had to tell him to get off the airplane. Again he never acknowledged us. He did one hell of a walk around!

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What is an FE? Flight Examiner, another acronym for captain? I know FO is first officer and FA is flight attendant. Not familiar with FE.